Trying to keep focused

Are you a monogamous knitter or crocheter? I wish that I was but I am afraid I am a bit of a crafting butterfly and flit from one project to another. This can result in not seeing much progress made on anything, which in turn can be a little disheartening. So in order to try to keep my focus, I have set myself 9 challenges to be completed during May, with some rewards thrown in if I manage to finish them all. That's the theory anyway, but I may already have become unstuck as far as the rewards go!  Here's my 9 challenges...

It is definitely helping me to stay focused having these particular projects to work on and I have already completed a couple! Yay me!

I sewed some safari animals for Dottie to go with the On Safari cloth book I made for her birthday. They are super-cute and pretty easy to sew. I added a shaker to the lion, crinkly plastic in the elephant's ears, a squeaker in the zebra and a bean bag to give the giraffe a squidgy tummy! They come as a panel from Moda. I bought mine from Wool Warehouse and they still have plenty in stock if you know a little one who would love them too. 

Still with Dottie, I knitted her a cardigan. I'm waiting to hear how it is size-wise before knitting any more. I used the Pop! cardigan pattern by Rachel Atkinson. It's a lovely pattern, knit top down. I also chose to knit the sleeves in the round so there was very little finishing at the end. I used Stylecraft Bambino yarn in the colour Heather and I think it's a really pretty colour. It has some sweet little kitty buttons too.

On Instagram, I saw that my local hospital were asking people to sew flags from different countries - 92 in total - to represent all the different nationalities of the nurses working at the hospital, to celebrate International Nurses Day (which happens to be today.) I was given Greece and Malta to sew, and we were asked to add things to each flag to show what the NHS means to us. I was a bit limited by the fabric choices that I had, but managed to find enough bits to make the flags. Hopefully there will be some photos on social media showing all the flags. I believe that they are going to form a permanent display somewhere in the hospital.

My crochet temperature blanket is up to date. I'm waiting for some yarn to arrive in the post to be able to complete this week's squares as I'm running out of a few colours. I am really enjoying working on this and it's going to be lovely and big and squishy when it's done. The first photo shows the progress from the start of the year with the daily highs (top) and lows (bottom) and week 17's squares waiting to be joined. The other photo shows week 18's temperature, all joined in.

Finally, I finished my Rainbow Ripple socks which I knit as part of the 2.6 Challenge to raise money for Myositis UK. I'm delighted that they managed to raise £220 and they are on their way to the winner. Thank you so much if you made a donation. Every penny counts and the charity (and I) so appreciate it. 

My biggest project to complete is a blanket that I'm knitting in Stylecraft Bellissima Chunky yarn. I hadn't done any work on it for absolutely ages and was pleasantly surprised when I saw how much I'd actually knitted. I'm trying to do a little bit every day in order to be finished by the end of May. Then come the rewards! Although I did allow myself an early reward when I saw that StripeyCatYarns was having a Bank Holiday weekend challenge to knit a sock over the three days. How could I not join in, especially having recently added to my stripey sock yarn stash with two beautiful colourways. I did manage to knit one sock, but have put it away in a bag so that I'm not tempted to knit its sibling until the blanket is done! If you're interested, the colourway I used is called Snap Dragon.

Another reward is to knit myself a Love Note sweater. I've wanted one for ages but just never got around to knitting one so decided to treat myself to some yarn from Truly Hooked. I've been invited to join in a Love Note KAL with some Instagram friends, so I might reward myself by winding the yarn later today! But first I have a sock pattern to write up. Keep safe - I'm staying at home for the long haul - and catch up again soon. xxx